# Shockley Semiconductor Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory — a company founded by [[wiki/William Shockley|William Shockley]] in [[wiki/Mountain View|Mountain View]], California in 1956, after leaving [[wiki/Bell Labs|Bell Labs]]. The company's location on the San Francisco Peninsula physically established what would become [[wiki/Silicon Valley|Silicon Valley]]. Shockley's management failures led to the defection of the [[wiki/Traitorous Eight|Traitorous Eight]], who founded [[wiki/Fairchild Semiconductor|Fairchild Semiconductor]], seeding the entire Silicon Valley ecosystem. Documented in [[articles/Bell Labs and the Distributed Architecture of American Power|Bell Labs and the Distributed Architecture of American Power]].